Don Redman wrote:
(1) MB is currently not able to genuinely store metadata in a format
that will apply to all DVDs
However, the current album-oriented way of storing metadata is
applicable to a majority of DVDs.
Highly agree with this. The same can be said of CDs and vinyl too - MB
has problems with entering hidden pre-track gap songs on CDs and there
were issues brought up relating to infinite loop vinyl releases in the
last view months. DVDs that are problematic from an MB point of view
might be more common than problematic releases in other mediums, but
they're still a minority and not a majority.
This is what StyleGuidelines are for. Therefore DVDs could be added to
MusicBrainz using relatively complex guidelines. But if the pro-DVD
people are willing to work these guidelines out and to watch that they
are being applied, that is ok.
From my own music DVD collection, I suspect the main guidelines could
be fairly simple. The main issue would be needing either a lot of
examples or an expansive series of sub-guides to deal with edge cases
and the peculiarities of authoring done by certain labels.
- The guidelines could specify that stuff above a certain level of
complexity belongs to the annotation.
- The guidelines coud outline a threshold of 'musical relatedness'
under which DVDs should not be added to MB
Seems like a somewhat slippery slope. Don't we currently have
audiobooks and speeches in the DB that are completely unrelated to
music? It seems like a topic that can easily generate endless hours of
arguments and frustration if we embark on it. Where exactly do you draw
the line among these DVDs:
A singer stars in a musical (Nakazawa Yuko - Footloose)
A singer stars in a musical and always does a short concert afterwards;
the DVD is roughly 90 minutes musical, 30 minutes concert. (Goto Maki -
Sayonara no Love Song)
A singer does a revue + concert; the DVD is a 30 minute mini-musical +
90 minute concert. (Abe Natsumi + Melon Kinenbi - 05 Revue and Concert
“Murata-san, Goki?”)
A singer does a fan club tour in Hawaii and the DVD includes about 45
minutes of footage of events with the fans plus a 30 minute concert.
(Matsuura Aya - Fan Club Tour in Hawaii vol. 1 or vol. 2)
A singer does an image video in Hawaii and the DVD includes 3 songs
performed by them during it that are special ukelele arrangements.
(Matsuura Aya - Alo Hello 2 or Abe Natsumi - Alo Hello)
A singer shoots a photo book in Hawaii and it comes with a bonus DVD
containing making of footage, but no singing. (Konno Asami - Alo Hello PB)
A singer has a minor role in a movie that contains no singing at all.
(Hoshii Nanase - Fly Daddy Fly)
A singer has a leading role in a movie that contains no singing by them
at all. (Nakashima Mika - Worst By Chance)
A singer has a leading role in a movie that's mostly about singing and
they perform several songs in it (Christina Milian - Be Cool)
A singer has a leading role in a movie that is mostly about singing and
releases singles/albums as that character (Nakashima Mika - Nana and
Yuna Ito - Nana)
If you can pick a threshold in such a way that no one will argue about
it and it is clear for all of the above examples whether or not they're
allowed then you're a more skilled man than I.
> (2) DVDs have a non negligeable role in musical culture. They are
> probably going to become even more important.
Really, really want to state how much I agree with this. It's obviously
going to vary by genre/label/region, but for me and some of what I
listened to DVDs are an automatic assumption. On Avex's new releases
page - http://avexnet.jp/latest/ - of the releases listed in the
"Japanese music" category there (the first section of the page), 19 out
of 40 discs between 03/29/06 and 4/12/06 are DVDs or CD+DVD
singles/albums. 24 of the releases are pairs where you can buy a CD only
or a CD+DVD version. http://musumenavi.cool.ne.jp/mn/release06.html is
a fan listing of releases from UFA for Jan/February this year; in that
time period there are 3 photobook+DVD releases, 16 DVD releases, and 3
CD releases. These are the two companies with the highest levels of DVD
acceptance that I'm aware of; Sony, WMG, JVC, and UMG seem to mostly
only put out DVDs for concerts and the occasional video collection, not
much for CD+DVD bundles or separate pairs yet. Toshiba-EMI has been
spotty with it in the past, limiting it to only their best selling
artists. They're doing it more and more these days, lowering the point
where they consider it worth releasing the additional version.
(3) Are DVD entries _in the MB database_ 'official'? This depends on the
definition of what a "DVD" is _in MB_. Some define it as an entry
representing an audio rip. Then it makes sense to set the status to
'bootleg'. Othes seem to define it as an etry representing the whole
DVD. Then normal album rules should apply.
A simple solution might be for the non-straightforward DVDs add both.
For discs with a linear tracklist, no extra features, and a 1:1
chapter:song relationship you can simply add the DVD as official. For
non-linear, multiple angles, easter egg/hidden features, etc. ones you
can input the tracklist from the case or menu as official and then add a
real world bootleg version.
_______________________________________________
Musicbrainz-style mailing list
Musicbrainz-style@lists.musicbrainz.org
http://lists.musicbrainz.org/mailman/listinfo/musicbrainz-style
